This invention relates to a printing apparatus which prints image data recorded in a storage medium, such as a memory, by, for example, a digital still camera, on a printing medium of various sizes, and to an image pickup apparatus and a printing system with an image pickup function.
There have been printing apparatuses suited to print pictures taken by a digital still camera or the like. Such printing apparatuses are designed to enlarge or reduce supplied image data to a suitable size and print the processed image data on a printing medium.
One known technique is to provide a zoom function for an image pickup apparatus, take in image data whose zoom rate has been set manually to a suitable value, and print the data on a printing medium.
With the method of setting the zoom rate manually and taking in the image data, however, to change the zoom rate to the desired one, it is necessary to operate the zoom changing switch manually. The procedure is troublesome.
In a case where the zoom rate has been set erroneously in taking a picture, if the erroneously taken picture were printed on a printing medium, printing could not be done on the printing medium as desired; for example, the image in the desired range could not fit in the width of the printing medium or the image would be printed too small for the width of the printing medium.
To overcome the problems, the apparatus disclosed in, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-104136 compares the size of image data with the size of a printing medium, sets the zoom rate that causes the size of the image data and that of the printing medium to have a specific ratio, activates the zoom function so that the zoom rate may be achieved, enlarges or reduces the image to be picked up at the zoom rate, takes in the resulting image, and prints the read image data on the printing medium.
With this method, however, because the zoom rate is set so that the size of the image data and that of the printing medium may have a specific ratio and then the image data is enlarged or reduced, the result of the printing on the printing medium is nothing short of the enlargement or reduction of the original image data according to the size of the printing medium. When printing is done on, for example, a rectangular printing medium with much more frontage than depth, known as a panorama-size printing medium, the result of the printing is either a picture obtained by just enlarging the original image data sidewise or a picture having no image on both sides of the printing medium.
The object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus that is capable of setting an image area to be printed to the shape or size of a printing medium in the image data supplied from an image pickup apparatus or other image data generators, and that is capable of then printing the image area to the size of the printing medium. In addition, it is also an object of the present invention to provide an image pickup apparatus and a printing system with an image pickup function.
According to the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus comprising: a size discriminating section for discriminating between the sizes of printing mediums; an image processing section for setting image data for a printing image area in the image data supplied from an image data generator according to the size of the printing medium discriminated by the size discriminating section and subjecting the image data in the image area to an image process according to the size of the printing medium; and a printing section for printing the image data subjected to the image process at the image processing section on the printing medium.
According to the invention, there is provided an image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup section; and an image processing section for receiving information on the size of a printing medium discriminated by a printing apparatus, setting an area corresponding to the size of the printing medium in an image corresponding to the image data obtained by the image pickup section, subjecting the image data in the set area to an image process according to the size of the printing medium, and sending the image data subjected to the image process to the printing apparatus.
According to the invention, there is provided a printing apparatus comprising: a printing section for receiving the processed image data from an image pickup section after the image pickup apparatus has set a printing area in the image data and/or subjected the image data to an image process according to the result of the discrimination supplied from a size discriminating section, and printing the image data on the printing medium.
According to the invention, there is provided a printing system with an image pickup function comprising: an image pickup section; a size discriminating section for discriminating between the sizes of printing mediums; an image processing section for selecting an area to be printed according to the size of the printing medium discriminated by the size discriminating section from the image corresponding to the image obtained from the image pickup section and subjecting the image data in the set area to an image process according to the size of the printing medium; and a printing section for printing the image data subjected to the image process at the image processing section on the printing medium.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.